City on Fire (Metropolitan 2) (18 page)

Aiah turns to the monitors, sees the jumpy camera feed, half-dressed sleepy-eyed handcuffed men, pompadours hanging in their eyes, being marched onto trucks or into boats.

All condemned, she thinks. She shivers at the thought that she is watching men who soon will die.

“I wish there was another way,” she says.

“Mercy is a privilege of the powerful,” Constantine says. “Our power is uncertain, and theirs is great, and we cannot afford to show them any lenience. If our situation were improved, if we were secure in our power, perhaps then a degree of forbearance would be possible.” He shakes his head. “Besides, the only way to defeat the Handmen is to enlist the population, and these executions are the only way to show the people that the Hand is vulnerable now.” A cold laugh rumbles from his throat. “And for what it’s worth, each of the Handmen will have his fair trial— all your evidence will be considered by the military courts in the next week, and then sentences carried out.”

“They are all guilty,” Aiah says. “We know that.” And therefore will all die, because of her. After Sorya’s specialists rummage through their brains for useful information.

He raises a hand to touch her shoulder. She wants comfort, wants to rest her cheek against his rough knuckles, but is too conscious of the presence of the people surrounding them.

“Save sympathy for their victims,” he says, voice low in her ear.

“I will.” She looks at the video images again, looks for familiar images— the Slug, the Ferret. The images are all those of strangers. Strangers soon to die.

A cold wind seems to blow through her bones. She turns to Constantine again.

“These Handmen,” she says, “they’re like your family, aren’t they? You were raised with people like this. And ...” Her tongue stumbles on the words. “You destroyed them.”

Constantine’s face is a mask. The reversed video images of condemned men float through his eyes.

“
My family deserved what happened to them,” he says, “and so, Miss Aiah, do
these
.”

With that, he turns and prowls away.

Somewhere, audio feed from one of her teams, there comes the sound of cheering.

CRIME LORD PROTESTS INNOCENCE

“GOVERNMENT ILL-ADVISED,” SAYS ATTORNEY.

CRACKDOWN ON GANGSTERS CONTINUES UNDER MARTIAL LAW

“
Well,” Ethemark says, “the suspect just
exploded
. He was under arrest; our soldiers had him handcuffed and were marching him out of the room— and then ...” His mouth twists with distaste. “We had a camera on him at the time. You can watch the video, if you like, but unless you want to see your lunch again I wouldn’t recommend it.”

It is an inquiry on the PED’s only complete disaster: suspect dead while under arrest, the dead man’s wife and children witnesses to everything, everyone involved under suspension pending the outcome of the investigation.

Aiah looks down the table at the three members of the commission she’d appointed when the incident occurred. "The plasm angels saw nothing?”

“Three mages were telepresent in the room,” says Kelban, one of her team supervisors. “They maintain they had configured their sensoriums so as to be aware of plasm, and they saw nothing ... not till after it was over.”

“
They saw something then,” Ethemark says. “They were all aware of a powerful ... presence. It hovered over the body for a moment, then disappeared. No one saw a source-line. And they all say ...” He hesitates. “They were all
terrified
. Not just the mages, but the soldiers, too. The soldiers couldn’t even see it, whatever it was, but they could somehow feel it, and it spooked them.”

“If you ask me,” Kelban says, “a man exploding right in front of them is enough to scare any number of soldiers.”

Aiah’s mouth goes dry.
Taikoen
, she thinks, or another creature like him. Constantine had put him in the Handman’s body, and when the soldiers came, Taikoen had seen no point in staying.

“Do we have any conclusions?” she ventures.

“I think it’s down to the inexperience of our personnel,” says Kelban. “They got careless, or overexcited, and weren’t paying proper attention. The suspect was killed by some enemy, or by other Handmen who were afraid he would turn informer.”

“I have another theory,” Ethemark ventures, “though I admit it’s very tenuous.”

Aiah looks at him warily. She must protect Constantine, she thinks, and discourage even the notion of a hanged man.

“Go on,” she says.

“It may be some kind of time bomb,” Ethemark says, to Aiah’s relief. “A plasm bomb planted inside him, with the instruction to kill him if he were ever arrested.”

“
That kind of time bomb would be very difficult,” Kelban says. “And time bombs have a temporal limit— you can’t confine plasm in a human body for more than a few hours. And who would have done such a thing ... to
him
? And why? He was only a cousin.”

“
He might have done it to
himself
,” Ethemark says. “We know he had access to plasm. And some Handmen are simply crazy.”

“Well,” Aiah says, “if the Silver Hand possesses a mage capable of such a difficult piece of work, then we shall discover it soon enough. The next time ...”

Kelban finishes her sentence. “The next time one of our suspects blows up.”

And then he laughs and shakes his head.

Aiah does not find herself amused. She has a suspicion that more than one Handman is going to die this way.

“Finish your report,” Aiah says, “and have it on my desk tomorrow.”

GARGELIUS ENCHUK ON TOUR

NEW RECORDING BREAKS RECORDS

“NEW CITY WORLD” TOPS CHARTS

A week later, the first sheaf of typed interrogation transcripts arrives on Aiah’s desk. An eerie sensation creeps up her spine as she reads them.

All of them are in the first person. There are no questions included, as if the Handmen were dictating lengthy confessions rather than responding to interrogators. The typed pages are all in the same format.

My name is such-and-such. . .. On such-and-such a date I committed the following crime. . . . This was at the instigation of so-and-so, and assisting me were the following accomplices. . . . I am aware of plasm houses at the following locations. . . .

The last information, she decides, she can check. She does, and her mages discover it is all perfectly accurate.

The transcripts keep arriving, a new bundle every few days. Military courts move briskly through the long line of cases.

Eventually soldiers draw lots, and the losers are assigned to the firing squads.

CHAPTER SIX

The balcony rail of the Falcon Tower is a huge bronze likeness of a peregrine, gazing fiercely over the Palace and the city below, wings outspread to shelter those who stand on the balcony. Constantine, standing behind the peregrine with no less fierce an expression, looks as if he is riding the falcon’s back, aimed like an arrow at the city. A brisk wind rattles the air around him and he clearly rejoices in it, in its cold perfect vigor.

“Governing,” he murmurs. “All contradictions, all paradox.”

The city spreads out below him: green sea, rooftop gardens, glittering mirrorglass. In the distance, the spikes of Lorkhin Island sit on the horizon like a strange, alien crown.

“Plasm makes everything more intense,” he says. “It fills the world’s political history with turbulence even as it opens realms of political possibility. Plasm is transformative in this as in everything else.”

He gives his cynical demon grin. “How many of our histories— hah! our legends, our chromoplays and operas— how many concern a leader, a Metropolitan or king or general, who is destroyed by some bright spark who gets lucky with a plasm strike? And then this spark becomes the new leader — absolute power leaving a greater vacuum than other sorts— and our young hero gathers dominion until he has it all, is able to wave a transphysical hand and give foundation to his dreams, and perhaps he achieves wisdom as well as glory ... ah, but then, death at the hands of some other political entrepreneur.”

“That tale describes you, except for the ending,” Aiah says. “You survived.”

He looks at her, raises a thoughtful eyebrow. “In a sense, I did not. The man that I was did
not
survive. All that sustained him died— friends, family, nation, ideals. I had to make a new self afterward.” His look turns inward. “I am wiser now, but it is the kind of wisdom that turns a man bitter. I do not know if I am better for having achieved it.”

He looks down at the city again. The blustery wind paws at the lace at his throat. He throws out a hand, encompassing the world below, and then closes a fist, takes possession. Irony tugs at his lips. “To be the
one man
is dangerous. When I was Metropolitan of Cheloki, when the whole state rested on my shoulders— what happened to my dreams then? I wanted to change the foundations of everything, but it was all I could do to keep my head safely on my neck. But to
give up
power— that is dangerous, too, because to surrender power is to surrender the ability to create change ...”

He nods, looks out to the southwest, to the distant metropolis where Aiah was born. “That is the solution of the Scope of Jaspeer, to divide the power sufficiently that no one strike can threaten the survival of the state. The assembly, the senate, the powerful intendants, the premier, the president, the council of ministers ...” He shakes his head. “But with division of power comes division of responsibility. No one in Jaspeer possesses real power, and no one is really responsible for anything, least of all positive change— a certain discrete flow in the negative direction is permitted, a calcification of the public arteries... But while the decay slowly sets in, it is the boast of Jaspeer that nothing has changed there in hundreds of years.” Amusement sparkles in his eyes, and he gives a low laugh. “Perhaps not
boast
, perhaps rather a self-satisfied little moan,
we are as our grandfathers were, and want nothing more.”

Aiah’s laugh echoes Constantine’s own. She worked in the Jaspeeri government for years, and her impression of her superiors is no more positive than Constantine’s.

“And so the cycles continue,” Constantine says. “Despots follow despots, bureaucrats follow bureaucrats, each condemned to do the job of his predecessor, sometimes a little better, usually only a little worse. When the decay gets too pronounced there’s revolution or war, but then a new despot or faction takes control and begins the game all over again. Can it be changed, I wonder, without bringing it all down?”

“You’ve changed it,” Aiah says. “You’ve got rid of the Keremaths and replaced them with something better.”

“
I’ve done as well as could be expected,” Constantine says. He looks pensive; this self-deprecating mood is not a natural one for him. “One person can change little,” he muses, “but a person’s
idea
... an idea tested, perfected, demonstrated,
shown to be true
... that is real power. Ideas— the good ones, anyway— can be immortal.”

His hard raptor eyes gaze down at the city, looking at it as an opponent, a thing to be subdued and brought to heel. “This Caraqui is the testing ground,” he says. “Here, with a little luck, things can be made to happen. Here, the ideas may meet their proof. But the place is poor, desperately poor, the workforce has little education and few skills, and I have little time ...” He frowns.

“There is a recipe for creating wealth,” he says. “It is simple enough. Reduce tariffs, reduce state spending, reduce controls on borrowing and lending. Protect the value of the currency while allowing free exchange, allow the citizens free access to foreign currencies. Permit the citizens to keep any wealth they earn— no confiscations or extortions, such as were practiced under the Keremaths— and tax with a light hand, with a tax code renowned for its evenhandedness and a revenue bureau renowned for its incorruptibility ...”

He laughs. “Incorruptibility in Caraqui! But it is necessary: one must be
seen
to do all this, because it works only when it can be seen that you can be trusted, and to build full trust requires at least a generation. There are plenty of other places to put money where one
can
get a good return, and an investor wants guarantees...

“
And in the meantime, to make certain the wealth is not so completely concentrated at the top, one encourages trade unions, one promotes safety standards and discourages child labor ... but that is all one
can
do at this point, for there is no money yet, nothing for good universal education, nothing for housing, and that places the most vulnerable portion of our population in jeopardy, isolated, hopeless, confined to slums or in half-worlds, subject to extortion by the Silver Hand ...”

He looks at Aiah. “That is where
you
come in. You must show the people that the Silver Hand is vulnerable, that they
can
be broken. It is a way of building trust in the new regime, a way just like all the other methods, only more visible. And like the other ways, it will take a generation or more. Building a nation is slow work, one has to think in long spans of time; but that works against instinct, because in politics one always reaches for a
solution
, and the only realistic solution in Caraqui is that if you do this now, your grandchildren may be happy.”

Aiah steps forward, touches his arm. “I think you may be underestimating the strength of your argument.”

He looks at her, a glow in his eyes, and puts his hand over hers. “Possibly I am. But still, the problem is wealth, and how to get it. And that is why your Mr. Rohder is important. He can increase the wealth of the nation, and in a short space of time; and then the problem becomes one of
conserving
the wealth, keeping the government from pissing it all into the canals ...”